The following is an edited interview by Ryan Noha of Carlton Wynne, a new faculty member of Reformed Forum. This is the third installment of interviews highlighting the Lord’s work in the lives and ministries of our Reformed Forum faculty. Carlton sits down with Ryan Noha to discuss growing up in a mainline Presbyterian church, becoming a confessional Presbyterian, and serving his Lord in his family, church, and the work of Reformed Forum. 

Carlton, I’ve been blessed to get to know you over the years, first, through an excellent ThM class that you taught at Westminster on modern theology in 2019, and then through our work together at Reformed Forum. Let’s begin much further back than that, however, with your upbringing in the church. How did you become a Christian and then a confessional Presbyterian?

I grew up in a Christian home in Houston, Texas, where my family attended and I was baptized in First Presbyterian Church, which became a congregation in the PC(USA) denomination but is now a church in ECO. I believe the Lord regenerated me through the ministry of a Sunday school teacher whose name I cannot remember. I have a vague memory of realizing that the gospel was about Christ, that I needed him, and that it was very important for me to trust in him. I was probably five or six years old.

My understanding of Scripture and things of God at a young age came largely through my father, who became very interested in Ligonier Ministries and books by R. C. Sproul. I remember reading The Holiness of God and Chosen by God as a middle schooler, bringing my biblical questions to my dad. His little green leather Bible was often open next to him on his bed (usually with a TableTalk magazine next to it). I spent many evenings lying on that bed, talking with him about the things of God.

Beyond my father’s discipleship and my mother’s example, the Lord very graciously put men in my life who modeled for me Christian love and leadership throughout my time in youth ministry, college, and more formal ministry capacities—first as an intern with Reformed University Fellowship in the PCA then later in seminary and in pastoral ministry.

Not only did I become a believer at a very young age in a Christian home while attending church, but significantly, at the age of twelve, I witnessed my church rent asunder by a debate and ultimately a vote over whether to remain permanently in the then recently formed PC(USA). Six-hundred people, including my family, left that church and formed a church in the EPC, which, incidentally, has since migrated into the PCA.

During those days, I became aware of the significance of orthodox doctrine for the life of the church, and I witnessed its real-world impact on relationships, families, and the spiritual welfare of God’s people. Through my father’s involvement in that controversy, I gained a keen sense that church life could be messy, but it was important. That awareness has only grown over the years.

A confessional Presbyterian identity came much later. As a senior in college on my way to the Philadelphia Conference on Reformed Theology at Tenth Presbyterian Church, I stopped at the bookstore at Westminster Theological Seminary and bought my first copy of the Westminster Confession of Faith. I had heard of the Confession but had never read it. The Lord has a little sense of humor because I would later return, obviously, to Westminster as a student then as a professor.

As the years went by, I became more involved in church ministry. I was an intern with Reformed University Fellowship at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas, and then attended seminary at RTS in Charlotte. It was there that I grew to love systematic theology, and I realized that how important it is for Christians to have a theological structure—revealed in and developed out of the Scriptures—if they are to properly read their Bibles, to think about the Christian life, and to understand the gospel. The Westminster Standards became, for me, the framework in which I would grow in my knowledge of the Scriptures and of the Lord Jesus.

After seminary, I was called back to Dallas to serve as an assistant pastor, but I soon left to study at Westminster. Now I’m back in the pastoral ministry. Through those years, my conviction grew that a confessionally Reformed outlook is not only true and faithful to the Scriptures but also useful and important for believers in the pew.

Amen, brother. There is so much to be thankful for in all that you’ve said. The Lord has led you step by step from one degree of glory to another. What a fitting testimony to his sovereign grace that he would use a faithful Sunday school teacher, whose name you cannot even remember, to bring you the Word of God through which the Spirit gave you a new heart. And he has been faithful to grow you through the preaching of that Word and its reinforcement through family devotions and the example of godly mentors in the faith.

Maybe I could add that one of the most significant mentors in that long line of men the Lord has placed in my life is Dr. Lane Tipton, well-known to Reformed Forum readers and listeners. When I arrived in Philadelphia from Texas, Lane and I started meeting on a fairly regular basis. For years, he patiently listened to me spout what I thought I understood and then graciously and gently dialogued with me to smooth out and solidify what I would call the “wet cement” that remained in my theological outlook. To change the metaphor slightly, he helped to fortify in me many of the steel-beam structures of Reformed, confessional, and covenantal Christianity with a focus on the death and resurrection of Christ. Maybe best of all, he’s really shown me that the deepest friendships are grounded in a joyful, clear-eyed sharing of theological conviction in the love of Christ.

That’s beautiful to have such a brother in arms and so many other saints who have encouraged you in the faith. How do you now as a family man, as a head of a household, strive to carry on their legacy by discipling the next generation in Christ? Introduce us to your family life and tell us how the Lord is working in your lives to mature you in all in Christ.  

I’d be glad to. I’m married to my wonderful wife, Linley, for twenty-one years. We met in college where she became a believer. At every step of the way since, she has devoted herself not only to me but also increasingly to the church and to the raising of our three fabulous boys, ages sixteen, fourteen, and twelve. What we try to do in our home is to make the grace and truth of the Lord part of the warp and woof of everyday life.

Since our boys were babies, we have tried to think and live in terms of a Christian worldview—from my wife taking them to the park, showing them flowers and animals, to doing family devotions and reading from theologians that other children probably don’t hear read in their homes very much. By God’s grace, they’re very patient with me and are willing to listen and even to take an interest in theological and apologetic matters. Of course, that’s a great joy to me. Like John says, “I have no greater joy than to hear that my children are walking in the truth” [3 John 1:4]. All three of my sons are communing members of our church here in Atlanta, and it’s just a delight to be their dad.

My serving as a pastor and teacher brings unique privileges to our family. Among the privileges are all the ways that the church and seminary world have introduced our family to friends, books, and voices that we would otherwise never have encountered. And yet, as children of any pastor knows, there are unique challenges as well. Thankfully, the church where I serve loves and cares for our family as any other family. I think our boys would freely acknowledge that our commitment to the church and to Christ is not some performance but born out of the Lord’s design and his grace to each one of us.

Indeed. God has been gracious to you not only as a family man but also as a churchman, even an ordained servant in the PCA. What is your current pastoral call? How is the Lord building up the saints in your midst through the ordinary means of grace, particularly the preaching of the Word?

It’s my great joy to serve as the associate pastor at Westminster Presbyterian Church in Atlanta. Our church has deep roots in the PCA; it was the host of the original convocation of sessions that helped organize the launch of the PCA back in the 1970s. The church itself was started in 1901. I was called to serve on the pastoral staff in the heart of COVID in 2020. The original and continuing plan was for me to serve in a preaching, teaching, and shepherding function—preaching at our Sunday evening services and working closely with our senior pastor, Aaron Messner. All of it has been, as Lane Tipton says, “an unqualified delight.”

Week to week, I lead in worship, teach a Sunday School class (currently working very slowly through the Westminster Confession of Faith), and preach at our evening service. We also have a gathering on Wednesday evenings, where the pastors share a teaching load. Currently, we’re teaching a series on eschatology, which will lead into a study of the book of Revelation.

I also have the great privilege of promoting good Christian literature among our congregation. I help out with a “book of the month” initiative, where on the first Wednesday evening of the month, we take a break from our normal teaching series, and I give a presentation and lead a discussion on a classic or helpful work of theology. So far, we’ve done everything from Augustine’s Confessions to R. C. Sproul’s The Holiness of God to Athanasius’s On the Incarnation to Machen’s Christianity and Liberalism. And we just started Jonathan Landry Cruse’s What Happens When We Worship.

During the week, I meet with people for lunch, do premarital counseling and, of course, weddings and funerals—and all the wonderful opportunities that the Lord opens up through pastoral ministry to minister to the Lord’s people. Over the years, I’ve grown to love the flock in Atlanta, and I am increasingly thankful for the opportunity to preach and teach God’s Word to them. On the side, I teach about three classes a year at the Atlanta campus of Reformed Theological Seminary. Currently, I’m teaching a class titled Christ, Culture, and Contextualization. I also have the privilege of teaching apologetics and on the Westminster Standards.

Along the lines of your work in the seminary, we know that it’s fitting for a professor to be researching, writing, and producing new scholarship. Are you working on any new books or articles in conjunction with your labors in the local church or RTS?

Brother, I envy those who can find time to research and write while being full-time engaged in full-time pastoral ministry! I find a little bit of time each week, but even that’s been a struggle. Nevertheless, I continue to work on a book on covenant theology and baptism, which has been a thrill and a trial at the same time. I’ll be thankful when that project is finished. But it’s been a blessing to reflect on the topics of covenant and baptism for the past couple of years. The doctrine of the covenant embraces the whole Christian life and all of human history. And I believe that baptism as a sign of the covenant of grace is likewise a window into the full scope of redemptive history with so many implications for the Christian and for the church.

Amen. I’m looking forward to a taste of some of the fruits of your years of labor on the subject of baptism at our upcoming theology conference where we’ll be unpacking the ordinary means of grace that God uses for extraordinary ends. How did you first get to know about Reformed Forum? And other than your participation at our conference, how are you actively engaged in promoting our Colossians 1:28 mission as a faculty member?

Well, thanks, brother. It’s been an honor to be involved in the work of Reformed Forum. I first started listening to Christ the Center when I was a pastor in Dallas and a very fresh MDiv graduate. I don’t know how I found it, but I do remember one thing—going to Best Buy and buying the longest extension cord for earphones that I could find. We had an elliptical machine in my small study space at home, and I took some duct tape and taped that long extension from the elliptical around to the side of my desk and up to my laptop to plug it in so that I could listen to Christ the Center while exercising. That’s how I got to know Camden and Reformed Forum. For years, I listened to those interviews. I eventually stumbled upon Lane Tipton’s lectures on union with Christ. I still remember where I was when he walked through the benefits of our salvation as laid up in the person of Christ, explaining how the benefits are not abstracted from the Benefactor. I had zero idea that these guys whom I was listening to would eventually become my good friends. My meager contributions to Reformed Forum began when I came to Westminster [Theological Seminary] to study and participated in one or two interviews as a student. The next formal step was when Lane, Camden, and I began recording the Van Til group, walking through The Defense of the Faith, which has been a great joy. I love talking Van Til with those guys. We need to be more regular with our recordings, but life is busy! Now I have the great privilege of serving as a faculty member with Reformed Academy, contributing a course on Calvin’s Institutes. And I’m looking forward to my first Reformed Forum conference in Chicago this month [September 2024]. So, I’m a big fan of Reformed Forum. And I’m not alone; it’s exciting to hear our church members talk about Reformed Forum’s podcasts and courses. Many of them found Reformed Forum apart from knowing me, so it’s encouraging to see the reach and the influence that the ministry is having today.

I can confirm from all my time on the road, whether at the PCA GA or on the conference circuit, that folks are appreciative of your own labors through Reformed Forum. There’s lots of anticipation for your next course on Calvin’s Institutes, Books 3–4, for example. We’ll have to find a time to bring you back to the studio in 2025 to finish that series. As we look to the future, entrusting ourselves to the Lord, how might our readers remember you, your family, your church, and all your labors in the Lord in prayer?

Ah, yes! I’d love to finish the course. We can’t leave out Calvin on union with Christ! In terms of prayers, the first thing that comes to mind is that the Lord would enable me to be faithful in the ordinary things—loving my wife, raising my boys, preaching faithfully the Word. I just finished preaching through the Gospel of John, and I’ve picked back up in the book of Proverbs. So, I would ask for prayer that I would be a faithful preacher of Christ, a zealous teacher of God’s Word, and a loving shepherd of God’s people.

Secondly, I would appreciate prayer for overall physical stamina. The Lord’s been very merciful in giving me energy and strength. But I don’t mind sharing that my father gave me one of his kidneys back in 2006. Like many, I feel the weakness of the outer man in unique ways as we maintain a watchful eye on my own health, and I would appreciate prayer that the Lord would sustain me for many years before I go to glory. That is definitely my hope and my plan.

And thirdly, please pray that the Lord would enable our church in Atlanta and the church at large to persevere in fellowship with Christ through suffering with a heart-stirring heavenly vision of our inheritance in Christ.

In this episode, we welcome Aaron Renn, author of Life in the Negative World: Confronting Challenges in an Anti-Christian Culture, to explore the profound shifts in cultural attitudes towards Christianity and the broader implications for faith in the modern era. Renn, with a diverse background ranging from management and technology consulting at Accenture, to urban policy as a Senior Fellow at the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research, and now a Senior Fellow at American Reformer, brings a unique perspective to the discussion. His extensive work has been featured in globally recognized publications such as The Guardian, The Wall Street Journal, and The Atlantic.

Life in the Negative World considers the dramatic changes in societal views on Christianity, tracing the journey from the mid-twentieth century—when church attendance was at its peak—to the present day, where professing Christian beliefs often results in social demotion within elite circles. Renn examines the transition from a once Christianity-affirming society to one that is, at best, indifferent, and at worst, hostile to Christian morals and teachings. In our conversation, he articulates the lessons learned from over seven decades of Christian cultural engagement, offering insightful strategies for churches, institutions, and individuals to maintain their faithfulness in an increasingly adversarial environment.

This episode is not just a reflection on the challenges faced by modern Christians but also a guide on how to navigate these tumultuous waters with grace, resilience, and a deepened faith. Renn emphasizes the necessity for a diverse array of strategies to engage missionally with a world that often seems at odds with Christian values. Whether you’re a person of faith struggling to find your place in this “negative world,” a church leader seeking direction for your community, or simply interested in the evolving relationship between religion and society, this conversation with Aaron Renn offers valuable insights and hope for the path forward.

Join us as we discuss the implications of living out one’s faith in an era that increasingly marginalizes Christian perspectives, and discover how to embrace the challenges of the negative world with courage and conviction.

Links

• Balaji Srinivasan, The Network State
• James C. Scott, Seeing Like a State
• AaronRenn.com
• American Reformer

Chapters

• 00:07 Introduction
• 05:28 The Story behind the Book
• 09:08 The Three Worlds Model
• 12:55 The Benedict Option
• 16:53 Improvements from the Article to the Book
• 19:55 Life Examples among the Different Worlds
• 27:04 The Beginning of the Negative World
• 30:16 Practical Strategies for Living in the Negative World
• 41:53 Thoughts on Preparing for Dystopian Futures
• 49:56 Conclusion

Participants: Aaron Renn, Camden Bucey

This the second installment of a quarterly series of interviews highlighting the Lord’s work in the lives and ministries of our Reformed Forum faculty. Lane Tipton, Fellow of Biblical and Systematic Theology at Reformed Forum and pastor of Trinity OPC in Easton, Pennsylvania, sits down with Ryan Noha to discuss his conversion through a Leviticus 16 sermon on TV, his zeal for Christian education and global missions, and his joyful service of the Lord in his family, church, and the work of Reformed Forum as the George Bailey of Glenside.

Lane, I’m familiar with your background and how you came to know the Lord, but it’s always a joy to hear of the old, old story of the gospel and how the Lord brings the finished work of Christ to bear effectually upon his people. Would you tell us how you were converted and then eventually became a minister in the OPC?

I grew up in a Southern Baptist home. My mother was a devout and godly woman. Her parents were both wonderful Christians. My father was not a believer, but my mother would have us attend worship with her every Sunday morning. From the earliest time I can remember, I was sitting under the gospel, but I did not accept and embrace it. After I hit about age 13, my mom did not require me to go to church but gave me the opportunity to either go or not go, and I decided I wouldn’t go. I went through my junior high and high school years without really going to church at all, without attending any worship services at all. I played a year of football on a scholarship out of Tascosa at Eastern New Mexico State University. I was thinking about pursuing a law degree and thought when I came home that summer that it would be a really wise thing to read my Bible and get a little bit of familiarity with the Judeo-Christian ethic, given the fact that I was wanting to pursue law.

I turned to Jesus’ denunciation of the Pharisees almost instantly where he was denouncing them in Matthew 23 and following for being whitewashed tombs, clean on the outside, but inside full of dead men’s bones. I recognized that he was speaking in his word to me, and that I was in danger of the judgment. A few days later on a Sunday morning, I turned on the television, and a man was preaching on Leviticus 16 and the Day of Atonement. He then talked about the blood of a sacrificial offering, a sin offering, being brought into the most holy place and satisfying the wrath of God. He talked about a scapegoat, having the sins of Israel confessed over its head and being driven outside the camp, bearing away the guilt of God’s people. He said these were types of Jesus. And I instantly recognized that my release from my sin, and my fear, and my guilt, and my burden was found in the wrath-propitiating, blood sacrifice of Jesus who bore away my sin. I saw instantly in that typology that Jesus was like the scapegoat, who had taken my sin away from me as far as the east is from the west. He had shed his blood for my sin and satisfied God’s wrath. And I repented of my sin; I asked the Lord to forgive me. I was elated. I thought, goodness, how could I have not seen this all of these years? I instantly told my mom who just came into the room and was weeping tears of joy. She had been praying for this for 19 years. And the Paul Harvey aspect of the story is that of all people to preach that sermon, it happened to be Jimmy Swaggart, believe that or not.

So I was converted and within a few months had found my way toward the Orthodox Presbyterian Church. I had received through some men, who were in Amarillo at the time, interested in Reformed theology, some literature that led me toward the Orthodox Presbyterian Church. As I read systematic theologies—Louis Berkhof, some B. B. Warfield, a little bit of Van Til—I was very quickly led by conviction to the Orthodox Presbyterian Church. I came to appreciate immensely Machen’s commitment to the spirituality of the church, his critique of liberalism as a different religion, the militancy of the OPC, its self-conscious embrace of being a pilgrim people, maintaining faithfulness to the gospel, not seeking cultural influence or affluence, but seeking rather to worship the Lord as engaged pilgrims, taking every thought captive, making it obedient to Christ, seeking the things above by faith, entering Sabbath rest, and being concerned most of all for the worship of the Triune God and giving a consistent, faithful witness to the world and calling all men and women, boys and girls everywhere to repent. That sent me on a path toward going to seminary.

It was a strangely quick movement from my conversion to pursuing the OPC and coming to a profound appreciation of Machen and his militancy and humility, and the church as it has been called by Charlie Dennison, “the church of the brokenhearted,” the church that mourns. This is not the norm, this kind of policy and worship and doctrine and this heavenly-mindedness. I have been in the OPC years and years now. I joined the Abilene congregation in 1989, if my memory serves, so it’s been a while.

I rejoice to hear of the Lord’s grace in your life afresh, not only that he was pleased to raise you from the deadness of your sin, but to grant you such rapid growth and maturity, even that you would see Christ in all of Scripture from day one and then dive right away into the deep end of Reformed theology with Machen and all the greats. This is truly a wonderful grace and profound mercy. I’d love to hear about the Lord’s gracious work in your family, as well. Would you introduce us to the Tiptons and share with us how the Lord is leading you all through this current season of life?

I met my wife, Charlene, when I came back from Southwestern Oklahoma State University. She has five uncles who have been or still are Orthodox Presbyterian ministers. We met in Abilene, Texas in 1992. About 10 months later, we were married. Everyone was saying, you guys need to get married. And I was all excited about us—you didn’t have to encourage me! She’s a beautiful, godly, intelligent, wonderful woman. Soon after that, we went to seminary, Westminster California. And by the time 1998 came around, we had our first child, Lauren; a few years later, Lyle; a few years after that, Trevor; a few years after that, Katie or Kaitlyn. And so we have four children. The oldest, Lauren, is now married. Lyle and Trevor are at Geneva playing basketball. And I will admit, tearing it up, and I’m very thankful for that. They’re godly young men walking with the Lord. Katie is class president just flourishing at Phil-Mont school founded by Cornelius Van Til. It’s all worked out in an amazing way.  Char and I are coming up on our 30th anniversary this next year. She works in the OPC home offices. She has been working there for several years now and does a fantastic job.

We’ve been here in Glenside since 1998, and it’s wonderful. I’m serving at Trinity OPC in Easton. It’s about 50 minutes from here. The family is doing great. They are a delight to my heart. They love the Lord and are all flourishing. I am so thankful. I’ve joked around before; I’ll adapt it, transpose it into this: I’m the George Bailey of Glenside, brother. I am just so thankful, so happy, and so richly blessed to have this family. They are, outside of the Lord, just the truest and purest joy of my heart.

Now as long as you mentioned Phil-Mont Academy and Van Til, I’ve got to ask, did you and Char have a devotional yet over that 1961 Van Til editorial I shared with you? The one that was published by Willow Grove Christian Day School, “The Whole Armour of God”?

Not yet. But talk about a letter that just states all that my wife has said before! Char has said before a number of times that she loves obviously loves Van Til. She and I married in part around a passionate commitment to Christian education. When I was in seminary out in California, Char taught at a Christian school. She taught years before that in Reformed Christian schools. She is just a fantastic teacher. We homeschooled our children. But when we first met, she and I read Van Til’s Essays on Christian Education as devotional literature and would marvel at the wonderful, robust, Reformed Trinitarianism, and Covenant Theology, and antithesis, and understanding of common grace, and the proper and indispensable role of Christian education from a Reformed world-and-life view. We fell in love around that. And so when we came to the Philadelphia area, and Phil-Mont was within ten minutes of our house, founded by Van Til—it’s just wonderful. So we’ll get around to that essay. I’m sure we’ll have numbers of discussions about it. Char has said, and I agree in certain ways with this, that Van Til might be at his very best when he’s talking about Christian education. You know, there’s a lot of “best” about Van Til, but one of his brightest points is talking about a consistently Reformed theological education for covenant children.

I couldn’t agree more. Now, you mentioned that you’re currently serving as pastor of Trinity OPC in Easton, Pennsylvania. What is your beloved congregation like and how is the Lord using the ordinary means of grace to gather and perfect the saints at Trinity?

I’ve been at Trinity in Easton for around a decade. Right before I arrived, the pastor left to join the Roman Catholic communion, which was a devastating blow to the congregation. For the past decade, I’ve had the unparalleled privilege of pastoring and shepherding and encouraging the saints in their walk with the Lord. As I said, apart from the Lord, my family is my chief delight, but just right in there, just as an unqualified delight is the service of the saints at Trinity. The elders, Charlie DeBoer, Joe Olliff, Luke DeBoer, Ian Parkin—a dear brother passed away about a year ago, went to be with the Lord—serving alongside those dear brothers in such a loving and giving congregation has been an oasis in the wilderness for me. I have delighted in my service, to know and love the congregation, to preach, teach, and serve alongside those brothers on the Session. The congregation over the years has grown to be what I would consider now to be a thriving, vibrant congregation filled with delightful people. I don’t want to overuse the George Bailey allusion, so I’ll change here, but I’ve been spoiled. And there is no end in sight from my side in terms of the service there. It continues to be an increasing joy for me. To see the way the Lord blesses through slow, steady, self-conscious means of grace, through Word and sacrament, through visiting and getting to know them as brothers and sisters in the Lord, walking beside them, bearing burdens, turning them to the sufferings and the comfort that are in Jesus Christ. I’ve always wanted to be a pastor; I was never initially aspiring to be a professor. And the Lord has granted me one of the deepest desires of my heart. Once again, I’m just so thankful for it.

That is tremendous, brother. To follow up for those who don’t know, who is George Bailey? And would your elaborate a bit upon what you’re preaching and teaching through these days and share any particular insights you might have from your studies in the Word?

If you remember, Jimmy Stewart played George Bailey in an all-time Christmas classic, It’s A Wonderful Life. And the long story short is that he finds that the money, the influence, the opportunity for notoriety, that all of those things pale mightily in comparison to having a group of people, family and friends, who gather around and love you and rejoice when you rejoice and mourn when you mourn. I don’t want to spoil it in case there are some younger folks out there who haven’t seen it, but at the end of the movie, when everyone’s coming into the house, doing something that’s just beautiful—I can’t resist the analogy. It’s delightful, whether it’s you brothers at Reformed Forum, whether it’s a number of dear brothers throughout the world, my loving family, the dear congregation, the Lord has just blessed me. And so I really do mean it, partly as a joke, but partly true: I’m like the George Bailey of Glenside, brother. I’m very thankful for it.

I’ve been preaching for some time on the book of Ephesians. I took about a one-year break and did some work on Hebrews 12 during the pandemic to talk about the unshakable kingdom. No matter what happens in this world, we are receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken. Over the past several months, I’ve been preaching through the armor of God and Ephesians 6, which is Christ, and have looked at how that armor is fundamentally putting on Christ, his ordinances, his Word, his Spirit, and by faith rising up with his people to fight against the principalities and powers of this present evil age, to set forth the truth of the gospel and its antithetical, full-orbed glory, and to recognize that no matter what happens in terms of the escalation of evil around us in the culture or in the world, Jesus Christ has established his Church. The gates of hell will not prevail against it because the Lord who is our armor has gone before us, destroyed his and our enemies and is in the process of making them a footstool for his feet, which will reach its climax in his glorious, visible second coming.

It’s been a delight to preach through that that book, and I’m kind of coming up on the end of it. You never know; I can’t ever calculate how many more sermons are in the hopper for it. But we’re moving toward the end of the Ephesians 6, and it has been an unusually rich feast for me to preach through. You think you understand the text until you work on it week in and week out for weeks, months, or years, and so it has been peculiarly rich for me. I’ve been very encouraged doing it. Of course, I have—I don’t want to diminish any other congregations in the world—but I might have the most patient and loving congregation in the OPC. They have stayed through it all, and we’ve taken a slow, careful look at that text and just feasted on the Christ who is revealed in it. It’s been a delight.

Now you’re a bit unusual as a minister in the OPC because you not only have the privilege of preaching twice every Lord’s day and doing Sunday school and visitation and serving the saints in Easton, but you’re also a Fellow of Biblical and Systematic Theology at Reformed Forum. How are you actively engaged in the Colossians 1:28 mission of Reformed Forum in that particular capacity?

Let me begin by saying Reformed Forum has been and always will be a pure labor of love for me. You do not find anything like it anymore. In the past, there were some that were striving for this, but the combination of militancy and love, distinctive commitments to the Confession, Van Til, Vos Kline, and the development of what you might call the old Westminster theology or the first generation OPC theology, enriched by people like Kline, Gaffin, Strimple, and others—that’s unique to Reformed Forum. The ministry is so distinctive, while at the same time not succumbing to these biblicist, mutualist perversions that you find in the evangelical and ostensibly “Reformed” world of contemporary vintage in the last 20 years. At Reformed Forum you’ve got a catholic, Reformed, robust ministry of Reformed theology with Colossians 1:28 as the mission, seeking to present everyone mature in Christ.

My service, whether it pertains to the Reformed Academy and teaching courses on Van Til, Reformed Forum conferences—we’ve got one coming up that I’m so excited I can barely contain myself over—or the books that I’ve been graciously given the opportunity to write for Reformed Forum—Foundations of Covenant Theology, the Van Til book [The Trinitarian Theology of Cornelius Van Til], and several on the way—all continues to be a joy in the Lord. I don’t feel like in any of this that I’m working. I’m serving with joy, gladness, and peace and would not want to be anywhere in the whole world serving in except Reformed Forum. So again, I said about pastoring that the Lord’s given me the desire of my heart. Serving with Reformed Forum, though, it’s just been a delight that the Lord has brought. There are people that I won’t mention by name, but they have engaged in extraordinary giving and continue to give in ways that astound me to enable this kind of ministry. They have my deepest gratitude and admiration in the Lord. So, brother, as long as the Lord continues to cause Reformed Forum to flourish, and I have the ability and capacity and strength to serve, the duty is delight. They go right together.

To have over 3800 students in 75 countries involved at Reformed Forum, and to see it exploding in terms of worldwide outreach and ministry and serving the global church so profoundly, that especially gives me unbridled joy in the Lord. I pray that the Lord will continue making Reformed Forum this growing servant of the universal, worldwide Church. I love everything about Reformed Forum, but that, in particular, really is close to my heart to be able to serve brothers and sisters in different countries, under great persecution, who otherwise don’t have access to this kind of theology. To be able to serve them with rich, Reformed theology in the way that Reformed Form enables, and with the quality in terms of the platform and the presentation, as men committed to the deeper Protestant conception, it’s very exciting. I’m thankful to be a part of it, and I’m thankful to see the way the Lord has been blessing it. I’ve been amazed at the way that the Lord is causing Reformed Forum’s ministry to explode throughout the world. And it’s all of the Lord, so we give him glory.

In terms of that worldwide explosion, would you at liberty to share about any of the work that you’ve done with our brethren in China or Cambodia?

I’ll give you just one example. I’ve had an opportunity with a dear brother to talk to numbers of brothers in China, engaging in the training of pastors. I’ve taught a course to brothers in the Lord who are serving and pastoring. I just recently recorded some sermons that will be a part of a conference coming up, and I believe that there are going to be around 1200 people attending. For the last decade, I’ve had opportunities pre-COVID to go to Hong Kong to engage in service of these Chinese brothers and sisters. I can just testify to this: the Lord is giving them extraordinary grace and deep conviction. If Reformed theology in seminaries in this country is on the decline, which it is, and if the broad evangelicalism of this country is strangling true piety and vibrant doctrine, which it is, if liberalism and Barth and the post-conservative evangelical, post-liberal movements are divesting the system of doctrine of its vitality and substance, which it is—as you see a relative decline in the West, these brothers are on fire. The persecution that they are receiving is only causing more and more joy and vigor and militancy to make Christ known and to have an opportunity to serve. I’m going to stop because this gets me choked up, brother, but to have the honor and the privilege to serve such brothers whose hearts are so clearly cruciform and cross-stamped, serving the Lord, not seeking treasure on Earth but in heaven, it’s amazing. That opportunity and ongoing attempts to partner with those brothers, it’s just a delight.

Amen, brother. What you’re saying resonates in a peculiar way with me as I’ve had the great joy of regularly corresponding and working with many brothers and sisters in mainland China and Taiwan through our Reformed Academy. I’m consistently blown away by how they are willing to joyfully lay their lives down for the gospel. They often suffer much hardship for the sake of our Savior in their families and work, and yet at the end of the day, they still have the Spirit-wrought energy and zeal do the difficult work of translation and subtitle correction for us at Reformed Forum. They labor for nothing but for the glory of God and to see the riches of the Reformed faith flourish in their land. I’m truly in awe of what the Lord is pleased to do in bringing Reformed Forum these connections with saints that weren’t on my radar, but they were on the Lord’s radar. He is bringing the Church, his global family, together even while the world is at war. Chinese believers and Western believers are loving one another and are growing unto perfection in Christ.

It is of the Lord. They are the dearest of brothers and sisters, so praise the Lord for them.

As we come to the close of our interview, how might our friends and supporters around the world pray for you and your ministry?

I really appreciate you asking. Pray for my wife to continue to flourish and for our relationship to grow; for my children to continue to flourish and walk with the Lord as they’re doing; for faithfulness in ministry at Trinity, preservation of the elders and growth of the congregation. Pray also for the work at Reformed Forum to move forward with people recognizing that we give all of our resources up front for free. Pray that the Lord would raise up people to support Reformed Forum’s work so that this global outreach, these 3800 plus students from 75 countries, could continue to be served. Pray that the Lord would make Reformed Forum faithful in serving the church and not be distracted by any other mission outside of the mission of Colossians 1:28, to seek to present everyone mature in Christ through the presentation of what the Scriptures teach as received and expounded and enriched in our Reformed confessional tradition. Prayer along all those lines, and that the Lord would make me personally faithful in love and in truth for the sake of Christ would be deeply appreciated.

This the first installment of a quarterly series of interviews highlighting the Lord’s work in the lives and ministries of our Reformed Forum faculty. Up first is Jim Cassidy, president of the Reformed Forum board of directors and pastor of South Austin OPC in Austin, Texas. He sits down with Ryan Noha to discuss growing up Roman Catholic, giving up his life for the gospel, and serving the Lord in his family, church, and the work of Reformed Forum.

Jim, we have many longtime friends and supporters at Reformed Forum who know you well, but for those who are just meeting you for the first time or haven’t heard about your background, tell us how you made your way from Roman Catholicism into the OPC. How were you converted, and then how were you “born again” as one of Machen’s Warrior Children?

I appreciate that question. I think that growing up Roman Catholic has given me a particular perspective on the Reformation. When I was growing up Roman Catholic, the emphasis was very much upon the rules and doing what you’re supposed to do so that you don’t displease God. And if you don’t displease God, then you can get yourself out from underneath his wrath. So everything was geared towards this work of merit, whether it’s in the participation of the sacraments, going to church, not talking in church to your friends, kneeling properly, being an altar boy—you got some extra points for that. Now, they didn’t put it in those terms. But that’s sort of the message that was communicated.

As I was growing up and into college, I was under the impression that if you did enough good works, or if you did more good works than bad works, then you would go to either purgatory or heaven. But if you were a particularly nasty sort that did more bad deeds than good deeds, you would go to hell. Now, nobody I knew, despite the depravity that we exercised in our lives, thought that they were so bad as to be going to hell. And when they did something that was particularly bad, and they knew it, they would joke around and laugh and say, “Ha, I’m going to hell!” But it was not really taken seriously. I had this impression going into college.

It was there in college that I met a Baptist believer who was ministering to me and praying for me. His church’s youth group back home was also praying for me. And he was witnessing to me telling me about the gospel. When I told him my understanding of Christianity as I just explained it, he said, “No, that’s not how you get to heaven. You get into heaven by having a personal relationship with Jesus Christ.” And now, we know, and I know from hindsight, that that’s not itself the gospel: “Having a personal relationship with Jesus.” That’s more of an evangelical way of saying that it’s not on the basis of your works or your goodness that you get into heaven but by faith in Jesus Christ. And so I remember going to bed that evening and saying to Jesus that I wanted to have a relationship with him. I woke up the next day, and I began to read my Bible and basically haven’t looked back since.

Now at that time, I didn’t fully comprehend the gospel. I knew nothing of the Reformation. So my intent was to be a Catholic—a good Catholic—and to stay in the Catholic Church. My intent was to go around telling everybody that they need to have a “personal relationship with Jesus” because that’s what I was taught. At that point, a Reformed person who was part of a Protestant Bible study took me aside. He began to explain to me the differences between Catholicism and Protestantism, and he told me a little bit about the Reformation and “faith alone” and “grace alone” and all of that stuff. And when I went home over Christmas break during my sophomore year, I began to read Galatians. It blew my mind because Paul was articulating everything that I did not believe or that I was not taught growing up. In fact, it was the exact opposite of what I was being taught as I was growing up. It absolutely transformed and renovated my way of thinking about sin and salvation, the gospel—the whole nine yards. I quickly became very angry at the Catholic Church when I thought about the way that they were misleading me. My soul, and the souls of millions, was dependent upon the church proclaiming the truth and the true gospel, and Rome wasn’t doing that. It upset me very much.

I’ve gotten over my anger, but speaking to the issue of Machen’s Warrior Children, perhaps the reason that I am so dogmatically committed to Reformed theology is because I believe that it is as Warfield put it: “Christianity come to its own.” And if Reformed Christianity is “Christianity come to its own,” then we absolutely must stand for it; we must fight for it. Souls are at stake. I would never want our church to lose that message. I think Machen felt that way, too, even though he wasn’t raised Catholic. He was raised within the Presbyterian Church, but he was militant about the truth because he knew that it was a life-or-death situation. And I know it’s a life-or-death situation. So I believe in the Reformed faith and in zealously maintaining it, promoting it, preaching it, and teaching it because I believe truly that lives are at stake.

Amen, brother. I never tire of hearing how the Lord has brought a person to the understanding of that life-giving gospel: the gospel of Jesus Christ crucified, risen, ascended, and coming again. It’s only through union with him that we have any hope of salvation. It’s really that simple. We aren’t Reformed because we’re pugilistic, but because the Reformed faith is the only faith worth contending for. It’s radically consistent with Scripture, and that’s why we love it. That’s why we agree with Machen when he said on his deathbed, “Isn’t the Reformed faith grand?”

Yes. I think everybody has it within them to give their lives for something. We all know the brevity of our lives, and I think I think everybody wants to give their life to something that that counts, that makes a difference. Most of the time people identify the wrong thing to give their lives for. When I found and discovered the truth of the gospel as it was recaptured and re-articulated by the Reformers, I found something where I could say, I’m willing to die on that hill. I’m willing to surrender my life for the sake of that message because it has eternal consequences, even as the message itself is eternal as it says in the Book of Revelation, the “eternal gospel.” Without that understanding, we don’t have the gospel. We only have a man-made imitation of it as Paul says in Galatians, which is “no gospel at all.”

It’s really important for us to understand that we don’t want to be Machen’s Warrior Children, as it were, for the sake of making other people’s lives difficult. Or if we’re being just obnoxious, having a reputation for being that pugilistic guy who’s always looking to fight—we don’t want that. We don’t fight for the sake of the fight; we fight for the sake of the faith. We fight the good fight of faith. It’s important for us to keep our eyes on that because it’s that faith which will bring Christ’s children to maturity. And that’s part of what our goal is at Reformed Forum: to declare the whole counsel of God unto the people of God so that everyone in the church can be brought to the point of maturity in Christ, all to the glory of Christ, for the good of his church, and the evangelization of the lost. That’s something that we have to bear in mind.

We’re supporting the Great Commission of the church. We’re not the church; we’re not doing the Great Commission. Rather, we’re seeking to come alongside the church to support its mission to preach the gospel. And without understanding exactly what it is that the Scriptures teach about the gospel, we have nothing to offer the world. We have no evangel, no gospel to preach, unless we are clear, concise, and accurate in our proper reading of the Scriptures, aided by the Holy Spirit through the testimony of the church in the past and all the greats upon whose shoulders we stand. Without that, we don’t have a message that is worth living for. It’s not worth dying for. It doesn’t aid in the work of evangelism.

That’s right. Without that message, it’s not even evangelism at all. Now, on that note of discipleship, I’d love to hear how this all works out in your family life. Would you give us portrait of your family and then share a bit about how you seek to lead in such a way that the Lord would draw your wife and children into these glorious truths that we hold so dear?

My wife, Eve, is a great helpmeet to me. She has been there by my side in ministry for the last 20 years. I’m so very grateful. We’ve known each other longer than that, but we’ve been married in ministry for 20 years. We have three wonderful children, Caitlyn, Ian, and Anna, and they’re all great kids. I love them dearly. In terms of your question about discipleship, it’s a little bit different now because the kids are older. Eve has a job outside the home, and I have a job, of course. So we’re all going every which way, and our time together for regular, regimented family worship is not in the same pattern as it was when the kids were younger. We were very regimented. After our evening meal, we would have Bible reading, catechesis, and prayer. Now, my pastoral instinct to try to mitigate the awkward schedule of having older kids, one of whom is in college, is to take every opportunity to talk to them about the things of the Lord and to pray with them. I drive my daughter to school every day and we pray on the way to school; we talk about the things of the Lord and about the church. My kids are inquisitive, so they like to ask questions. I try to maximize those questions to illuminate the faith.

It’s much more dynamic, living as it is now in terms of ministry to the family, but I have to emphasize the importance of catechesis. My kids have a bedrock, a foundation, in the Catechism that they learned when they were younger. If I were to be honest and sober, I would say that they probably wouldn’t be able to recite word for word the vast majority of the Q and A’s that they learned as they were growing up, but the substance is there. And there are a few very key questions and answers that the kids still very much have burned or etched within their memories, such that it would go rote if I were to ask the question at random. Sometimes I’ll say, “What does every sin deserve?” in the course of conversation, and the kids instantly say, “the wrath and curse of God,” which is from the Children’s Catechism. There are some of those questions that are really familiar: Who made you? What’s your chief end? And however you might rephrase that question, they’ve got it; they know it. So it gives us something to build on as they as they grow older and as they mature in the faith.

Catechesis was the kind of thing that I did not grow up with. Catholicism would say, we do catechesis; the Catholic Church has a Catechism. But really, catechesis is a Protestant Reformational practice. When I was growing up, we read very little Bible. Even in Catholic parochial school, which I went to from first grade right through college, we studied very little in the Scriptures. And we certainly didn’t get regular, regimented catechesis, learning questions and answers in the Catechism of the Catholic Church. We were not well instructed at all. Despite the fact that we had religious training all throughout, we didn’t learn the faith systematically.

Nonetheless, that’s a beautiful thing that you can look back on God’s faithfulness today and see how he has worked through the “foolishness” of catechesis in your own family, in the next generation. You can share in the great joy that the Apostle John spoke about when he heard that his children, his flock, were “walking in the truth.” Tell us about your own church, your own flock. Where do you serve and how is the Lord using the means of grace to gather and perfect his people there?

Thank you for that. I love my church very much. And it’s a joy to be able to talk about the congregation and the work here in South Austin. I came here in 2014. The congregation in Pflugerville, Texas, which is just to the northeast of Austin, not very far outside city limits—that was the original South Austin Presbyterian Church actually. They were originally meeting in locations on the south side of the city. Then they were able to get a piece of land and build a building, but it was to the northeast in Pflugerville. They ended up moving up there, leaving the south side somewhat untended in terms of Reformed witness. Glen Clary was the pastor there before I arrived at Providence in Pflugerville. And they had a group at that church that was meeting for Bible study down on the south side. There were about 20 to 25 people that were traveling north from South Austin up to Pflugerville for worship on Sunday, and they were desirous of starting a work on the south side.

That Bible study had been going on for five years when they finally called me to come as a church planter. We started worship services in July of 2014, and we became a particular congregation in 2015. From there we began to grow and to develop as the Lord continued to add to our numbers. A couple of years ago, we were able to purchase the building where we now carry out our ministry. Not long after we started worshiping, after we particularized, we had a couple of families come to our church from the New Braunfels area, which is about 45 minutes south of here towards San Antonio. We ministered to those families, and they were desirous of starting a work in New Braunfels. This was funny, because we were praying from the very beginning that the Lord would allow us to become a church-planting church plant. We didn’t want to wait very long to start praying and thinking about the next church plant. And so that’s what ended up happening. Within five years, we ended up starting the work down in New Braunfels. And now in a couple of weeks’ time, Lord willing, the New Braunfels church is going to particularize as a new and regular congregation. We’re really excited about that.

South Austin OPC itself is a very mature congregation. The folks are very serious about the word. They’re absolutely committed to Reformed worship, to the inclusion of Psalms in worship—not exclusively, but inclusive psalmody—and to Reformed orthodoxy. Our elders are very good shepherds. They take good care of the people and are very attentive, patient, kind, and loving. Our deacons are the same. They’re attentive to the needs of the congregation and have done a great job tending to the flock. Anyway, that’s a little bit about us. It’s a congregation that I’m so very much in love with.

What are you preaching and teaching through these days in terms of sermon series or Sunday school, and what fruit is your ministry bearing in the congregation?

In the morning, we are going through the book of James. That has been very useful for all of us, myself, especially. James’ exhortation with regard to the use of our words has been transforming for me, and I think for others, as well. As Reformed Christians, we are a very principled people, and rightly so. We believe that we are to live on the basis of God’s Word, and so we live in a very principled way. And we believe that we can know God and how he wants us to live. But sometimes, when a principled mindset combines with the old nature, we can very quickly allow our zeal to overtake our holiness, our self-discipline, and our restraint. Then sometimes we speak out of a desire to be principled, to stand for the truth, but we do so perhaps in a way that’s not loving and kind and proper and biblical.

James’ exhortations on what it means to suffer have also been a tremendous help to me personally. He’s one of the few places outside of the Book of Job that you can find reference to Job. James is very concerned to instruct the congregation who is obviously suffering. They are suffering persecution and opposition from the world, and James is concerned to teach them what it means to suffer righteously. Sometimes, suffering righteously means guarding your words in such a way that when you’re attacked, you don’t return attack for attack and so forth and so on. That’s been very helpful, I think, to the congregation.

In the evening, I’ve been preaching on 1 Chronicles. We’re going to get to 1 Chronicles 5 this Sunday, Lord willing. The congregation has been remarkably receptive to that series. I thought it would be a flop, quite frankly, because, as you know, the first nine chapters of 1 Chronicles is just a list of names except in chapter four where you have the prayer of Jabez. Of course, much has been made of that by some. I did a two-part series on chapter four, focusing exclusively on the prayer of Jabez. There were some little polemics in those sermons, which is appropriate in this instance.

The emphasis that I’ve been trying to underscore, however, is that we are the people of God. Our identity in Jesus Christ is found with the people of God under the old covenant. So when we read these genealogies, we have to understand that they are our genealogies. We’re living in a day and age where there seems to be a renewed interest in family lineage and genealogy. You can take a prick of blood or saliva, send it to some company, and they’ll tell you who your people are. But that’s DNA. We’re talking about something that’s deeper than DNA, which is the covenant of grace. We’re emphasizing our unity in the covenant of grace with the people of old and now showing the way in which the people of God are a people of every tribe, nation, and tongue.

During Sunday school, we’ve been working through R. B. Kuiper’s book on the doctrine of the church, The Glorious Body of Christ. And I talked about that a little bit recently on a Christ the Center episode. That’s been really helpful, especially in the area of church authority and power. I think there’s a lot of confusion out there about what church power and authority is or is not. Kuiper gives us a tonic to avoid an evangelical sort of no-churchism on the one hand, and then a kind of Roman Catholic-authoritarian-dominating kind of approach to authority and power on the other. He gives us the Reformed position. That’s been very helpful and sparked a good deal of interesting conversation in our congregation.

Another area where Kuiper is so good is on the indestructibility of the church. Persecution not only does not destroy the church, but persecution is actually the seed bed of the church. The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church. The church grows from persecution. The world can’t destroy the church; rather persecution will only advance the cause of Christ in this world. When we suffer righteously, we are identifying most intimately with our savior in his sufferings. The pinnacle point at which we are to imitate Christ is precisely here, in our willing suffering. That doesn’t mean that we go out and ask for it or look for it. Some of the early church fathers were somewhat guilty in this regard, but normally nobody wants to suffer. At the same time, we are willing, like Jesus, and as he calls his disciples to do, to lay our lives down for our friends, the glory of Christ, and the building of the church.

That foolishness of the cross will never become less foolish to the world, but to those who are God’s elect, it is the power of God unto salvation. So keep preaching it, brother! Now we could continue discussing and rejoicing in the Lord’s good work through your ministry in the local church, but I’d love to hear how you are also striving to serve the church in her Colossians 1:28 work through your labors here at Reformed Forum.

My role at Reformed Forum is somewhat supportive, which is great because that’s what I think I’m good at that. I’m not the sort of person that excels at leadership and taking charge and making things happen. Our dear brother Camden, our Executive Director, is excellent at organization, administration, execution of tasks and what not. He’s got the big vision; he knows what he’s doing. I’m here simply as a board member, and as the president of the board, to support him and our faculty—to cheer everybody on and to assist in anything that needs to be done to accomplish our mission.

As a faculty member, I’ve been working on a number of things, including a class on the Gospel of John that I hope to be able to roll out sometime later this year. I also do blog posts and Christ the Center episodes. I try to encourage our Van Til cohort students on Discord (our chat platform). I just see myself as playing a supporting role, throwing myself in anywhere that the Lord opens up for me to encourage, help, and assist. Everybody over there at the new office is doing a great job in terms of getting my material for the Westminster Shorter Catechism classes [Qs. 1–38 and Qs. 39–107] into published, book form. I’ve been working on that manuscript, and hopefully that will come out later on this year.

With the busyness of the pastorate and family, finding time to be able to execute on those projects that I have on my desk is something that is moving along way too slowly. I wish that I was able to produce more as a faculty member, but I remain blessed. The Lord has been gracious and kind. I love what Reformed Forum is doing. To be involved at all is a privilege and an honor. I’m sort of like the free safety in football—just kind of standing by waiting to make an interception or to maybe a tackle. I’m looking to be there when I’m needed and then to fill in that gap as those needs arise. But really, if I aspire to anything, it’s to become the water boy.

That’s one thing that I love about working with you. And the same is true for the other brothers at RF. You have a servant heart. You’re just seeking to live coram Deo and to serve the church. I love that that’s in our mission statement. It’s in our blood, our spiritual DNA. We don’t want to be big shots or to replace the church; we want to be servants to her and to labor unto the glory of our Head, even Jesus Christ, who by his Spirit and word perfects his bride. It’s such a joy to labor with you as a like-minded brother in Christ, to know the bond of peace that we have by the Spirit.  

Psalm 133. It’s better than the oil going down Aaron’s beard and robe. Amen, and amen. And the feeling is mutual brother. Thank you for the great work here that you’re doing for Reformed Forum. We are exceedingly grateful and regard you as a gift from the Lord.

All that I’ve received is from him, and I praise him for that. As we look together unto the Lord to provide the increase for all of our labors, are there any particular things that our listeners and supporters can lift up in prayer on your behalf?

We always covet prayers, the prayers of the saints wherever they may find themselves, for our church and ministry in South Austin. We covet the prayers of God’s people everywhere for the ministry of Reformed Forum for everything that we’re doing, from recording classes to rolling out books and blog posts. Pray that the work of Christ by His Spirit would continue. And I would ask even that it would increase in my heart, so that as I become more like Christ, I will be more effective at showing others how to walk with Christ.

This week’s episode is an exhortation from John 13:1-13 given by Rob McKenzie on June 13, 2021 at Westminster Presbyterian Church (OPC).

Participants: Rob McKenzie

In this review, we consider CM, Christian Meditation: What the Bible Teaches about Meditation and Spiritual Excercises by Edmund P. Clowney and published by Regent College Publishing.

Writing in 1977, Edmund P. Clowney addressed the growing popularity of transcendental meditation (TM). TM started to develop roots in America in the 1960s and took off in part due to high-profile endorsements, including one from The Beatles. You may be tempted to think this is old news and a long-passed fad, yet with the rise of meditation apps such as Headspace, Calm, or Sam Harris’s Waking Up, Clowney still has much to say for our contemporary context.

This book’s 108 pages are divided into four major sections: (1) TM Challenges the Christian Church (2) The Yoga of Discipleship (3) The Delight of Communion, and (4) The Practice of Praise.

As Clowney unpacks the details of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi’s system of TM, he pulls no punches, remarking that no Christian could partake of the initiation ceremony without violating the second commandment given that gurus are venerated and the Hindu gods are invoked (p. 8). Such candor is refreshing and timely. In our present day, people seek to approach meditation from a purely secular vantage point, which may lead many Christians to think these spiritual disciplines are neutral or at least compatible or reclaimable within a Christian worldview. But there are deeper matters at stake. This is not a mere matter of form but also one of spiritual substance.

The discipline of TM, for example, is rooted in Hindu monistic philosophy. Clowney writes,

Stages have been marked out in gaining this [transcendental] experience. First is the state of pure awareness. In this state we are no longer aware of any thing or idea but only of awareness itself. The repetition of a word or syllable aids in this, for the mantra first blocks out all other ideas and then loses all meaning or suggestive power of its own. The resulting state of mind is called transcendental consciousness. Beyond this lie cosmic consciousness, God-consciousness, and unity consciousness. These are progressive steps in a “pure” awareness that experiences identity with the cosmos and the absolute. The oneness with the absolute that the Maharishi pictures as the goal of human destiny is really the opposite of Christian fellowship with the living God. It is not the experience of knowing God but the delusion of being God.

Clowney, 9.

In other words, it is pantheistic. It is directly opposed to the wonder and joy we come to experience through covenant. It fundamentally misses what Geerhardus Vos called the deeper Protestant conception. It also presupposes that God cannot be known except through this transcendental experience via a different type of consciousness. Yet God has revealed himself to us. Even his invisible attributes, namely his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived through the things that have been made (Rom. 1:20). Clowney explains how Christian meditation is (1) rooted in God’s truth, (2) responds to the love of God, and (3) is an excercise of praise unto him.

It is critical for Christians to be self-conscious about their practices. The type of meditation described in God’s word can bring focus to our lives especially when we have become complacent, living on auto-pilot. Clowney remarks,

But too often, through lack of meditation, Christians become secularized and their capacity to see the world before the Lord shrivels. It is not a fixed stare at a stone or a tree that aids meditation. Such fixity leads to illusion not perception. But a focused seeing, a contemplative examination of both the richness and reality of one of God’s works—that is productive if done in fellowship with the Creator. If you are looking for a place to begin, try meditating on your own hand—not on one spot, but on your whole hand as God’s creation. Read Psalm 139, then look at your hand again. Write down some of your reflections. Then praise God for your hand, claim his cleansing of your hand, and seek his blessing on it (cf. Ps. 90:17). How will you use it in his service?

Clowney, 41.

When influential voices ranging from Tim Ferriss and Joe Rogan to Michael Pollan suggest or propose the use of psychedelics as a means for accessing a greater reality, Clowney reminds us that God’s word advocates for the reality of God’s presence accessible through his personal revelation. We do not need to escape ourselves, to disintegrate the ego, in order to commune with the triune God. We simply must seek him in spirit and in truth.

Clowney’s CM, Christian Meditation is a delightfully succinct yet significant book for our present moment. It is a call and encouragement for all Christians to take seriously their daily spiritual disciplines and to seek the Lord while he may be found (Isa. 55:6).

Participants: Camden Bucey

Participants: Rob McKenzie, Robert Tarullo

Participants: Rob McKenzie, Robert Tarullo

Participants: Rob McKenzie, Robert Tarullo

Participants: Rob McKenzie, Robert Tarullo

Participants: Rob McKenzie, Robert Tarullo

Participants: Rob McKenzie, Robert Tarullo

Dr. A. Craig Troxel speaks about With All Your Heart: Orienting Your Mind, Desires, and Will toward Christ (Crossway, 2020). Whereas contemporary culture identifies the “heart” with feelings and emotions, Craig Troxel speaks about the range of uses of the word “heart” in the Bible. The heart knows, desires, and chooses. This fuller conception of “heart” helps us understand our battle with sin and the redemption that has been wrought by Jesus Christ.

Dr. Troxel is professor of practical theology at Westminster Seminary California. He previously served as pastor of Bethel Orthodox Presbyterian Church in Wheaton, Illinois and Calvary Presbyterian Church (OPC) in Glenside, Pennsylvania.

Participants: A. Craig Troxel, Camden Bucey

Epicurus sought blessedness either in external and carnal delights, or in inner tranquility of soul, or in both at once; Muhammad sought it in all sorts of external delights; and neither of the two sought it in the possession, communion, enjoyment, and glorification of God. By that fact neither acknowledges that God is sufficient to make him blessed, nor consequently that God himself is blessed.

Petrus van Mastricht, Theoretical-Practical Theology, 2:491

The Modern Messiah: Minimalism

Consumerism “is perhaps the most powerful religious movement at work in the West today.”^[1] Coursing through its veins is the lifeblood of globalization and postmodernity. The production of unprecedented wealth in the West has been wedded to a rejection of an overarching story or worldview that gives meaning to our lives. Consumerism is their offspring. It has been borne to the high places from where it reigns supreme, decreeing a culture of consumption—nothing is off-limits, everything is desirable, all are on the hunt for more.

But the never-ending hunt of consumerism has, for tired souls, given way to the simple house-cleaning of minimalism that prioritizes control and seeks inner tranquility.

YouTube (verb) “minimalism” and begin scrolling. But be warned: it doesn’t end. It’s a dismal descent, deeper and deeper into that virtual black hole—you will not escape its gravitational pull until it’s 3 a.m. and, like Nebuchadnezzar driven from among men, your reason finally returns to you. Ironic, though, how minimalist sages have maximized on YouTube’s algorithm, and the very same secular prophets who decry consumerism for its financial obsession have come away with a nice profit of their own. 

Netflix even features a film, “Minimalism: A Documentary About the Important Things.” The trailer opens with these words: “We spend so much time on the hunt, but nothing ever quite does it for us. And we get so wrapped up in the hunt that it kind of makes us miserable.” Barbaric Black Friday footage ensues—consumerism unhinged—climaxing with insight that nails consumerism’s coffin shut, “You’re not going to get happier by consuming more.” How should we then live? Cue the messiah who will save us from our consumerism: minimalism.

Note, it’s not consumerism in principle that minimalism combats, but consumerism in its failed state: it promised happiness, but never delivered. “It makes us miserable” and “You’re not going to get happier” bookend the perceived plight of consumerism. Minimalism, therefore, is heralded, proclaimed, even preached as the messiah who will make good on consumerism’s unfulfilled promise to make us happy. The titles of these videos with hundreds of thousands of views tell the story: “5 Ways Minimalism Improves Our Happiness,” “A Minimalist Lifestyle Will Make You Happier,” “Why More Stuff Won’t Make You Happy,” and “Less stuff, more happiness.”

Blaise Pascal is again vindicated when he wrote,

All men seek happiness. This is without exception. Whatever different means they employ, they all tend to this end. The cause of some going to war, and of others avoiding it, is the same desire in both, attended with different views. The will never takes the least step but to this object. This is the motive of every action of every man, even of those who hang themselves.

So too the Dutch-Reformed theologian, Petrus van Mastricht:

[T]here is no one who does not desire his own blessedness. … [N]othing is desirable apart from blessedness; indeed, nothing is desirable except for the sake of blessedness. For why do people desire wealth, honors, pleasures, and so forth, except for the sake of blessedness? And likewise, why do we turn from and avoid every adversity, except that they impede and disturb our blessedness?

Theoretical-Practical Theology, 2:493-94

The pendulum has swung from external delight to internal tranquility, from consumerism to minimalism in hopes of finding peace and contentment, blessedness and happiness, satisfaction and fulfillment. The hunt has been exchanged for the hammock. 

But is minimalism our liberator or the same captor in a new guise?

Before scorching minimalism by placing it before the true Savior whose eyes are like a flame of fire (Rev. 1:14), there is much to commend about it—not, of course, as a modern messiah who can secure our blessedness, but as encapsulating some biblical wisdom according to God’s common grace.

Commandeering Minimalism

In what ways can we commandeer minimalism as Christians to aid us in our service to King Jesus and pursuit of God’s glory in all things? Here are a minimum of six ways.

1. An Apologetic against Consumerism, Confirming Job and Ecclesiastes. Minimalism exposes the futility, emptiness, and deception of consumerism. Consuming more of what already doesn’t make you happy will not make you happy—just ask Solomon in Ecclesiastes. “Vanity of vanities! All is vanity.” But if consumerism face-plants against the wisdom of Ecclesiastes, then minimalism does the same with the wisdom of Job. The point of Ecclesiastes and Job is the same from opposite ends: God alone is my blessedness whether I have everything or I have nothing—in him I rest satisfied (Ps. 16:11; 73:25).

2. Imitates God’s Simplicity. Minimalism even imitates—on a finite, creaturely level—the simplicity of God. The following quote may prove Mastricht (1630-1706) a minimalist long before it became trendy:

The divine simplicity teaches us to acquiesce to our lot, however simple it may be. For the more simple anything is, the more constant it is, and durable, whereas the more composite, likewise the more dissoluble and corruptible. Thus, God is most immutable because he is most simple…. When it comes to our lot, the exact same is true: the more simple, the more solid, and the more variegated from compositions by wealth, honors, friends, the more mutable, and the more you are distracted by so many objects, the more you are liable to cares and anxieties (Luke 10:41), for the more you possess, the more you can lose. It is thus on this account that we should, in godly self-sufficiency, accustom our soul to simplicity, and should substitute, for the variety of things, the one God who is most sufficient in every way for all things (Gen. 17:1), who is accordingly for us the one thing necessary (Luke 10:42). So then let us possess him as our lot, with a simple acquiescence, and other things as corollaries (Matt. 6:33), looking to the apostle, who urges this contentment (1 Tim. 6:6) and lights our way in it with his own example (Phil. 4:11-12).

Theoretical-Practical Theology, 2:152

3. Glorifies God’s All-Sufficiency for Himself and Us. Not filling our lives with distractions upon distractions, even being willing to forgo good things and comforts for the sake of the gospel and Christian love, magnifies God as our sufficiency. Pascal observed that we fill our lives with diversions and distractions to console ourselves from our miseries, and yet this is the greatest of our miseries. “I have often said that the sole cause of man’s unhappiness is that he does not know how to stay quietly in his room.” But the person who has been reconciled to God in Christ draws near to the throne of grace with their once-guilty conscience now cleansed by the once-for-all shed blood of Christ. His blood has also obtained for us the right to eat from the heavenly altar and so have our hearts strengthened by grace. “For here we have no lasting city, but we seek the city that is to come” (Heb. 13:14).

4. Fits a Pilgrim Lifestyle. The letter to the Hebrews situates the church in the wilderness between redemption and consummation. The wilderness is marked by want and lack, barrenness and emptiness—a perfect place for God to test the faith of his people. But while the wilderness makes us acutely aware of what we do not have, the author of Hebrews reminds us of what we do have. Note the verb “to have” (ἔχω) bookends the rich theological core of the letter that expounds the heavenly high priesthood of Jesus Christ (4:14–10:25). That we have Jesus Christ as our high priest is the indicative (statement of fact) from which the imperatives (statement of command) arise. “We have … therefore, let us…” is the basic gospel pattern of the letter.^[2] As we reckon with our present redemptive-historical situation as pilgrims in the wilderness who are seeking a city that is to come, even as strangers and exiles on earth who are seeking a homeland and desiring a better country, that is, a heavenly one, we draw strength from knowing that we already possess Jesus Christ as our high priest who bears our names on his heart in heaven before the Father, unashamed to call us his brothers. Though I may not have many comforts or much security and my possessions and freedom may even be taken from me (Heb. 10:32ff.), I have him, and because I have him, I can persevere and will one day arrive on the shores of that longed-for heavenly country where he is. If minimalism may be understood as foregoing earthly pleasures for heavenly rewards, a kind of transcending of the temporal sphere, then Moses would be a minimalist: “By faith Moses, when he was grown up, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter, choosing rather to be mistreated with the people of God than to enjoy the fleeting pleasures of sin” (11:24-25). This kind of minimalism fits our identity as a pilgrim people. 

5. Promotes Prayer. Luke reminds us that Jesus frequently withdrew to the wilderness to pray (5:16) and Mark tells us that Jesus rose early in the morning, while it was still dark, left the house and went off to a solitary place to pray (1:35). While there is much more to this, we can at least see that removing distractions and quieting ourselves before God promotes and prioritizes prayer in our lives—something all-too elusive in our distracted age.

6. Boosts Productivity, Improves Organization and Reduces Stress. Practically, minimalism will make you more productive, which is good and desirable as a means to honor God in the stewardship of your time. As a matter of fact, a clean, organized desk that is used not as an additional bookshelf but as a workstation will probably speed up your sermon prep, keep your mind focused on the task at-hand so you can think more deeply about it, and make your study overall more efficient. Check out Matt Perman’s How to Set Up Your Desk: A Guide to Fixing a (Surprisingly) Overlooked Productivity Problem.

Unmasking Minimalism

So minimalism has its benefits, but as a messiah who will make us blessed, it must be wholeheartedly cast into the fire. Minimalism is the same captor as consumerism, but in a different guise. Both enslave us to ourselves. Both make self-realization the path of happiness. Both seek fulfillment in the creation apart from the Creator. Neither can deal with the source of our misery: our sin that has alienated us from the God who is forever blessed and the source of all blessedness. External delights or internal tranquility is proclaimed as that which will make you happy and blessed, but neither can make you right with God who created you for himself. 

Furthermore, minimalism cannot be absolute since it can only thrive in the wake of the exhaustion of consumerism. Minimalism presents itself as our savior from consumerism. The hammock allures the man exhausted from the hunt. Minimalism realizes the misery that possessing and pursuing more things brings, but instead of turning to the one thing that can satisfy and give you rest, God himself, it turns to an abstract principle of renunciation. It addresses the symptoms, but not the disease; in fact, it has no intention of ever healing you. 

The True Messiah: Mastricht contra Minimalism

Neither consumerism nor minimalism can make us happy. When either is raised to messianic proportions, their disciples are left dry and doomed. But there is a tertium quid (a third option) that only the Christian can see. Mastricht is again our guide:

Epicurus sought blessedness either in external and carnal delights, or in inner tranquility of soul, or in both at once; Muhammad sought it in all sorts of external delights; and neither of the two sought it in the possession, communion, enjoyment, and glorification of God. By that fact neither acknowledges that God is sufficient to make him blessed, nor consequently that God himself is blessed.

Theoretical-Practical Theology, 2:491

There is nothing new under the sun. Minimalism is as ancient a lifestyle as any, and God himself always remains the answer. Consumerists and minimalists will always be restless until they rest in God. Blessedness, happiness, satisfaction, fullness are to the world as mythical as Atlantis or the Holy Grail or the fountain of youth, for they are not found on earth, but with God. Although the distance between God and us is infinite, we can enjoy him as our blessedness and reward because he has voluntarily condescended to us by way of covenant (WCF 7.1). “I will be your God and you will be my people” is the joyful chorus of Scripture.

“Blessed are the people whose God is the LORD!”

Psalm 144:15

Furthermore, as Mastricht observes, “[The blessedness of God] convinces us that the blessedness of the rational creature is possible, because not only is God most blessed, and thus able to communicate his blessedness, but he has also endued rational creatures with an appetite for blessedness, and certainly he did not do so in vain (Ps. 4:6)” (Theoretical-Practical Theology, 2:493). Whether we possess everything according to the wisdom of consumerism or nothing according to the wisdom of minimalism, we will always feel our extreme misery as long as we are destitute of God and are the enemies of him who is the source of all joy (Isa. 59:2; Eph. 2:12). 

Where, then, can I find true happiness? Mastricht steers us in the right direction: 

(a) in union or possession of the most blessed one (Ps. 73:25; 16:5; 33:12; 144:15);

(b) in communion with God (1 John 1:3; 2 Cor. 13:14), by which he is with us, in us, for us, and, as our God, devotes himself and all his attributes to us and to our blessing (Rom. 8:32);

(c) in the enjoyment of God, which embraces, first, the perfect knowledge (and as it were the vision) of God (John 17:3; 1 Cor. 13:12; Job 19:26-27), and of our blessedness as well, in union and communion with God (2 Cor. 3:18; 4:6), and second, a perfect repose and joy arising from this union and communion, together with our knowledge of it, that is, a perfect fulness of joys and pleasures with God’s face, and at his right hand (Ps. 16:11; 1 Cor. 2:9; Ps. 84:11);

(d) in the sweetest glorification of God (Isa. 6:3; Rev. 4:8, 10-11; 5:9ff.). 

Theoretical-Practical Theology, 2:493

If that is where true happiness is found, then how do I make it my own? Mastricht opens up God’s Word and exhorts us to… 

Pursue reconciliation with God with all our effort, through faith in the blood of the Mediator (2 Cor. 5:19-20; Col. 1:20), that we may be freed from all evil, which is the first part of blessedness.

Strive for union with Christ, that at the same time we may be united with God, in which is the foundation of blessedness for all, for blessedness comes through faith (Phil. 3:9; John 14:6).

Strive with all our effort for uniformity with God and with his will (Rev. 2:6; Ps. 40:8), which best procures his friendship.

Yield ourselves in covenant with God by receiving the conditions of the covenant offered to us, that namely God should become our God (Gen. 17:1), in which every point of our blessedness consists (Ps. 33:12).

Walk with God in the light, and thus we will have communion with him (1 John 1:3, 6-7).

Zealously employ those means by which we are brought closer to God: faith, hope, love, repentance, prayers, and the duties of public and private worship (James 4:8).

Theoretical-Practical Theology, 2:494

God has promised in his covenant of grace, “I will be your God and you will be my people.” He has fulfilled his promise in his Son, our Lord Jesus Christ. When God is our God, when he is our chosen portion and cup, then out of the overflow of our heart, our mouth speaks, “The lines have fallen for me in pleasant places; indeed, I have a beautiful inheritance” (Ps. 16:6).

Whether I have much or whether I have little, I rest in him. The one who rests in God and walks in his ways “is like a tree planted by streams of water that yields its fruit in its season, and its leaf does not wither” (Ps. 1:3).

Now come diseases, come poverty, persecution, death, and any great evil, they will say, “If God be for us, who can be against us?” (Rom. 8:31). Those things may take away the verdure and the foliage of blessedness (which [we] possess in hope and in some way in reality), yet they will never rip out root and trunk. [We] will exult in triumph with the apostle, “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? … I am persuaded that neither death, nor life, nor anything, shall separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Rom. 8:35, 38-39).

Theoretical-Practical Theology, 2:495

Only the Christian can taunt disease, poverty, persecution and death—powers before which consumerism and minimalism cower—because only the Christian has Christ. By grace alone his perfect satisfaction, righteousness, and holiness has been credited to me as if I had never sinned nor been a sinner, and as if I had been as perfectly obedient as Christ was obedient for me (Heidelberg Catechism 60).

The source of our misery has been fully dealt with in Christ our Savior. He alone brings us into God’s presence where there is fullness of joy, even to a place of sonship at his right hand where there are pleasures forevermore.

^[1] Michael W. Goheen, A Light to the Nations: The Missional Church and the Biblical Story (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2011), 14.

^[2] The middle section of Hebrews begins with 4:14-16, “Since then we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession. For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but [we do have] one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin. Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.” The main point of the section is summarized in 8:1-2, “Now the point in what we are saying is this: we have such a high priest, one who is seated at the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in heaven, a minister in the holy places, in the true tent that the Lord set up, not man.” And the section ends with 10:19-25, “Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus, by the new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain, that is, through his flesh, and since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water. Let ushold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful. And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near.”

In episode 64 we open up Genesis 20 and find a duplicate of what took place eight chapter earlier. To protect himself, Abraham tries to pass off his wife, Sarah, as his sister. In doing so, he inadvertently places the line of the Messiah in grave danger. It takes an act of God through special revelation to preserve the offspring of the woman.

Participants: Adam York, Jim Cassidy, Mark A. Winder

On this week’s episode of Theology Simply Profound, we repost an old episode on Reading Biographies. In this episode, Rob, Melodie, and Bob discuss the benefits of reading biographies and which ones may be helpful to read, both Christian and non-Christian. We also bring to your attention the new biography published by Reformed Forum, Geerhardus Vos: Reformed Biblical Theologian, Confessional Presbyterian, by Danny E. Olinger.

Participants: Melodie McKenzie, Rob McKenzie, Robert Tarullo

In a startling episode of fear and worldliness we find the hope of the gospel. Learn how the person and work of Christ can be preached from what seems to be the most unlikely text.

Participants: Adam York, Glen Clary, Mark A. Winder

We interrupt our regularly scheduled programming because, whilst tending to his arduous studies at Reformed Theological Seminary in Orlando, Florida, Rob had the privilege of sitting down with Cameron Cole to talk about his new book with Crossway, Therefore I Have Hope: 12 Truths That Comfort, Sustain, and Redeem in Tragedy. We hope you enjoy this interview on Theology Simply Profound. Cameron Cole (MA, Wake Forest University) serves as director of youth ministries at the Cathedral Church of the Advent in Birmingham, Alabama, and is the chairman of Rooted, a ministry dedicated to fostering gospel-centered student ministry.

Participants: Cameron Cole, Rob McKenzie, Robert Tarullo

Our situation calls for serious self-discipline because the days are evil, and joyful celebration because God has rescued us from that evil in Jesus Christ.

Participants: Adam York, Glen Clary, Mark A. Winder, Mark Jenkins

Here are some clear cut commands—not therapeutic suggestions. Paul is not only explicit about the standard to which Christians are called, he is also explicit about why we are to obey that standard.

Participants: Jim Cassidy, Mark A. Winder, Mark Jenkins

This week on Theology Simply Profound, Rob and Bob discuss the riot that place in Ephesus. From Acts 19, we see the conflict between this present evil age and the age which is to come. Among other things, we talk about whether the Christian is to try to make the same kind of impact on our cities as Paul and his company did in Ephesus. What should our posture be in this world and what should we expect from the world that we live within?

Participants: Rob McKenzie, Robert Tarullo

Reflecting on Acts 8:1–3, Rob and Bob discuss the scattering of the church after the death of Stephen.

Participants: Rob McKenzie, Robert Tarullo

This week we’re at The Gospel Coalition 2017 Conference in Indianapolis, Indiana. We’re meeting many new people and telling them about our mission to assist the Church in her call to discipleship. With a host of new listeners, I wanted to release a special welcome episode into our podcast feed and provide a short introduction to what we do here at Reformed Forum.

We’ve been podcasting since January 2008. Our flagship program, Christ the Center, has released a new episode every Friday since that first episode was released over nine years ago. We’ve just published our first book No Uncertain Sound, which plants a flag for our distinctive confessional Reformed theology. We are unabashed in promoting historic Protestantism in the tradition of the Westminster Standards and the three forms of unity: the Canons of Dort, the Belgic Confession, and the Heidelberg Catechism. We believe this important, since we live in an age of broad and often pragmatic evangelicalism. We’re promoting something substantial and enduring.

But even beyond our confessional tradition, we specifically advance theology in the tradition of Geerhardus Vos and Cornelius Van Til. We’ve detailed all of this in our book No Uncertain Sound. We hope you pick up a copy and fall in love with this rich theology arising from a redemptive-historical hermeneutic.

At the end of the episode, we include a portion of Christ the Center episode 378 with Dr. Carl Trueman. In this episode, we speak about Dr. Trueman’s book Luther on the Christian Life, in which he paints a portrait of Martin Luther through his historical context, theological system, and approach to the Christian life. Luther is often treated in a black-and-white fashion or exclusively through his succinct theological quips and mottoes. Trueman helps us to see the practical and pastoral context in which Luther lived and ministered and thereby grants to us a better understanding of both the man and his theology.

Participants: Camden Bucey, Carl Trueman, Jim Cassidy

The below is a historical preamble written by the session of South Austin Presbyterian Church which explains why the church has a voice to speak to both the state and the culture. It was attached to a correspondence to the nine Justices of the Supreme Court calling them to repent of and repeal their decision on same sex marriage. I offer it here for consideration to the broader church. I am of the opinion that the church must be extremely choosey about which issues it speaks to and which issues it does not. First, the church had better have a clear “thus saith the Lord” before it speaks. Second, I myself am somewhat leery of when Christians talk about “the prophetic voice of the church.” Usually that expression is a sanctimonious way of saying “I want to leverage God’s name for the sake of pushing my political agenda.” And I find that tremendously distasteful. Third, I have noticed that churches and Christians have been not only hesitant to speak to the SCOTUS decision publicly, but also critical of those Christians who feel compelled to do so. It is therefore against both extremes that I offer this brief historical preamble to the question of how and why and when the church should and should not speak to the state. Please notice that in the examples cited caution is issued to the church to avoid meddling in civil affairs as much as possible. But, also, the examples acknowledge that there are times when the church may and must speak. These examples avoid the extreme of remaining silent about all civil matters on the one hand, and the extreme of speaking indiscriminately to many, most, or all civil matters on the other.

Historical Preamble

The Church’s Prophetic Voice

In the history of God’s people there have been various and sundry occasions when the church has been called upon to speak to the civil government. After all, God alone is the one true King of all nations who serve at his command. And the church, as the Kingdom of God, is the place from which the Lord God speaks to not only his people, but to all peoples everywhere – including civil governments. In ages past God spoke through the prophets to civil governments in extraordinary circumstances. The Judge of Israel, Deborah, addressed the kings of the earth (Judges 5:3), Nathan the prophet called King David to repentance for his sin (2 Samuel 12), throughout the book of Daniel the prophet declared messages from God to unbelieving Babylonian kings through the interpretation of dreams, and John the Baptist called King Herod to repent of his sexual immorality (Mark 6).

Beyond the biblical witness, the church has always been a voice to those outside her pale. The church has never been understood as being a merely private institution, but a prophetic entity with a public voice. Of course we saw this quite clearly in the days of the civil rights movement. But even before that the church has been understood to have the jur divino ability to speak to the civil magistrate. We can only cite two examples here.

First, enshrined in the Westminster Confession of Faith, the doctrinal statement of many denominations here in America and throughout the world, is this statement: “Synods and councils are to handle, or conclude nothing, but that which is ecclesiastical: and are not to intermeddle with civil affairs which concern the commonwealth, unless by way of humble petition in cases extraordinary.” Our forefathers were very resistant to the idea of the church speaking to the state or the culture at large about matters civil. It was believed that insomuch as the church “inter-meddled” with civil affairs it was being distracted from its divine mandate to proclaim the Gospel and to be agents of reconciliation between God and man. But the church also recognized that there are times and cases which are “extraordinary” which demand the church to speak using its “prophetic” voice.

In addition, we have a representative example of how early American theologians articulated the role of the church relative to the state in the great Princeton theologian Charles Hodge. While he acknowledges that the church “has nothing to do with the state, in the exercise of its discretion within its own sphere; and therefore has no right to meddle with questions of policy, foreign or domestic,” and that “they profane the pulpit when they preach politics, or turn the sacred desk into a rostrum for lectures on secular affairs,” he nevertheless acknowledges as well the church’s prophetic voice toward the state.¹ For instance, he says:

if the state pass any laws contrary to the law of God, then it is the duty of the Church, to whom God has committed the great work of asserting and maintaining his truth and will, to protect and remonstrate. If the state not only violates the Sabbath, but makes it a condition to holding office, that others should violate it; or if it legalizes piracy, or concubinage, or polygamy; if it prohibits the worship of God, or the free use of the means of salvation; if, in short, it does any thing directly contrary to the law of God, the Church is bound to make that law known, and set it home upon the conscience of all concerned. (ibid., 104)

and:

It follows from the great commission of the church, that it is her prerogative and duty to testify for the truth and the law of God, wherever she can make her voice heard; not only to her own people, but to kings and rulers (Ibid., 103)

It is in light of this historical precedent that we, the Session of South Austin Presbyterian Church, do respectfully and humbly submit the attached appeal.

Joe Rigney is Assistant Professor of Theology and Christian Worldview at Bethlehem College and Seminary in Minneapolis, Minnesota and the author of The Things of Earth: Treasuring God by Enjoying His Gifts. In the book, Mr. Rigney seeks to help Christians glorify God by enjoying him forever by worshiping him as well as enjoying his good gifts. Often, Christians fall into a false dilemma between enjoying the things of earth and enjoying God—a perversion that leaves us with two sinful responses: idolatry and asceticism. Joe delivered an address on this subject titled, “Strangely Dim? The Things of Earth in the Light of Christ’s Face” at the Gospel Coalition 2015 National Conference, and he joins us today to help us consider this issue faithfully.

Participants: Camden Bucey, Joe Rigney

Dr. Carl Trueman joins us to speak about his book Luther on the Christian Life, in which he paints a portrait of Martin Luther through his historical context, theological system, and approach to the Christian life. Luther is often treated in a black-and-white fashion or exclusively through his succinct theological quips and mottoes. Trueman helps us to see the practical and pastoral context in which Luther lived and ministered and thereby grants to us a better understanding of both the man and his theology.

Participants: Camden Bucey, Carl Trueman, Jim Cassidy

——————

In counseling, there is always a worldview. There is a way of interpreting problems. There is a way of defining causality. There is a way of understanding influence. There is always a proposal for cure. There is always a goal that defines what thriving humans really look like. There is always a sense of a trajectory of change and growth and flourishing; how does a person come from a place that’s bad and hard and difficult and tormented and destructive to a place that’s relatively constructive, and start to flourish? Every single counselor has a view and answer to all those questions, whether they will admit it or not. Why do we put the adjectives “biblical” and “Christian” in front of “counseling”? We want to consider the things that our culture’s counselors never say:

• It does not get said in our culture’s counseling that “Man does not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.” [Matt. 4:4]
• It does not get said that, “Cast your cares upon him” because it matters to Him. [1 Pet. 5:7]
• It does not get said that, “He has said, ‘I will never leave you nor forsake you.’” [Heb. 13:5] Therefore you can confidently say, “The Lord is my helper. I will not fear. What can man do to me?” [Heb. 13:6]
• They never mention that God has a name.
• They never mention that God searches every heart and that every human being will give account before God.
• They never teach the fear of the Lord that is the beginning of wisdom.
• They never mention sinfulness and sin and that there is some kind of compulsive and obsessive drive in people to suppress the knowledge of God.
• They never mention that suffering is meaningful within larger purposes.
• They never mention Jesus Christ because Jesus is a standing insult to self-esteem, self-trust, self-confidence and all the “self” words that our culture believes are the answer to what is wrong with us.
• They never mention that God really does forgive sins.
• They never mention that the Lord is our refuge, and in the midst of terrible afflictions it is possible to walk through the valley of the shadow of death and lose all earthly good and not to despair because he is with us. There is safety—fundamental safety and refuge.
• They never mention that biological factors and personal history factors exist within the purposes of God. That those things locate our struggles and moral responsibility but do not trump moral responsibility.
• They never mention our propensity to return evil for evil, or that we should return evil with good.
• They never mention that human beings are meant to become, will all our heart, conscious worshipers.
• They never mention that we are meant to live to use our God-given gifts to further dedicate our lives to the coming of his kingdom.
• They never mention that the power to change does not lie within ourselves. There is an implicit belief that in some way if you can just understand yourself well enough and tap into interior resources and find enough support of human relationships and maybe get a bit of a chemical tweak on your moods and emotions, somehow that’s enough.
• They do not pray with and for people.

But there is a Father who is a Vinedresser, and there is a Son who is a Shepherd, and there is a Holy Spirit who is a life-giver and a fruit-giver. There is someone outside ourselves who is why we want counseling to be Christian, worthy of the name “Christian.” Part of our worldview is that problems do not get solved until the day we see Him face to face. Only then are the tears all gone. Only then is the struggle with our besetting sins all gone. But that hope is a true hope. (From an address given by David Powlison in Charlotte, NC on Tues, April 1, 2014. Some parts of the message are reproduced here verbatim and some parts are summarized.)

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Are those unmentioned truths essential for counseling, counselors, and counseling training, or are they peripheral?

Horses can teach you a great deal about life. Such is the take-home from my conversation this morning over breakfast. I sat next to John, a retired horse trainer, at the counter at the local diner. He has shown horses in 28 states as well as eastern and western Canada. We talked about raising and training horses and the life lessons he’s been able to gather from his experience. “What do you think is the biggest factor in making a horse a champion?” I asked. “It’s heart,” he said. “The horse has to have the inner drive.” “Can this be taught or impressed upon a horse?” “No,” he assured me. “Then how do you know if a horse has it?” “You have to try him.” This is true also for the Christian life. How do we know if we have a new heart—that drive to push through the struggles we encounter each day? How do we know if Christ is living in and through us? It’s on the track of everyday life. Job says, “But he knows the way that I take; when he has tried me, I shall come out as gold” (Job 23:10). When I was a much younger man, this was my favorite verse. I used to read it triumphantly, thinking that Job was speaking about his resolve. No matter what came his way, Job would fight through it and come out as gold. It wasn’t until much later in my own life that I read this verse in context. It’s about how God uses suffering to purify us as a goldsmith melts gold in a crucible in order to remove the dross. Each and every moment in the Christian life is a test, a trial that God uses to remove the impurities from his people. And when he has tried them, their core will show. Faith-union with Christ bears fruit through suffering. When the Christian is conformed to Christ’s sufferings, his or her inner life is revealed. Paul speaks about this reality in his letter to the Philippians. Christ moved from a life of suffering unto a life of glory, and the Christian life follows that same pattern (cf. Phil 2:5–11). For when Christians become like him in his sufferings, they will become like him in his subsequent glory (cf. Phil 3:10–11, 21). How then do we know if we have the heart—the inner drive to persevere on the track of life? Believe in Jesus. Repent of your sins. And look to his Spirit to give you the strength to push through (cf. Phil 1:6; Rom 8:28–30).

Kevin DeYoung speaks about his recent book Crazy Busy: A [Mercifully] Short Book about a [Really] Big Problem, published by Crossway Books. Pastor DeYoung diagnoses the causes of busyness, some of which are innocent, but many sinful. The book touches on practical concerns like social media and technology, but goes deeper, exposing the pride in our hearts. Kevin DeYoung is the Senior Pastor at University Reformed Church (RCA) in East Lansing, Michigan and the author of several books including Don’t Call it a Comeback: The Old Faith for a New Day and The Hole in Our Holiness: Filling the Gap Between Gospel Passion and Pursuing Godliness. He also posts regularly at his blog. DeYoung has spoken on Christ the Center several times, including episodes 206 and 211.

Participants: Camden Bucey, Jared Oliphint, Kevin DeYoung

Brett McCracken speaks about his book Gray Matters: Navigating the Space Between Legalism and Liberty. The book and today’s discussion address how Christians should relate to culture – food, drink, music, movies.

Brett McCracken is a Los Angeles-based writer and journalist. He is the author of Hipster Christianity: When Church & Cool Collide (Baker, 2010) and has written for The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, CNN.com, The Princeton Theological Review, Mediascape, Books & Culture, Christianity Today, Relevant, IMAGE Journal, Q Ideas, and Conversantlife.com. He speaks and lectures frequently at universities, churches, and conferences.

A graduate of Wheaton College and UCLA (M.A. in Cinema & Media Studies), Brett currently works as managing editor for Biola University’s Biola Magazine and is pursuing a Master’s in Theology at Talbot School of Theology. Links from the episode: Brett McCracken’s blog, Related Washington Post article, Book trailer

Participants: Brett McCracken, Camden Bucey, Jared Oliphint

Dr. Mark Talbot speaks about his forthcoming book tentatively entitled, When the Stars Disappear: Why Christians Suffer. Dr. Talbot’s research in philosophy, theology, and psychology serve to interpret his personal experiences of suffering and inform his counseling of those who suffer. The discussion covers the definition and purpose of Christian suffering, the human need to understand life as a story, the danger of a prosperity gospel, and the role of Scripture in the Christian life. Ultimately, the Christian’s hope in suffering is in the faithfulness of God, who cannot deny himself (2 Tim. 2:13). Dr. Talbot is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Wheaton College (IL) where he has taught since 1992. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania. His areas of expertise include the intersection of philosophy and theology, philosophy and psychology, the epistemologies of the early modern philosophers, and the works of David Hume, St. Augustine, and Jonathan Edwards. The article mentioned in the interview can be found here. You can also see Dr. Talbot speak about chronic suffering at the 2012 Desiring God Works of God Conference.

Participants: Carlton Wynne, Jared Oliphint, Mark Talbot

Dr. Michael Emlet discusses the recent fifth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM). The DSM is the official diagnostic manual used by mental health professionals and published by the American Psychiatric Association. Dr. Emlet explains the origin and purpose of the DSM and the questions this new edition raises for Christian believers. He outlines the way Christian counselors and pastors can benefit from the DSM and clarifies the relationship between psychiatric diagnoses and spiritual problems. Click here for the blog post mentioned in the episode.

Michael R. Emlet, M.Div., M.D., practiced as a family physician for twelve years before becoming a counselor and faculty member at the Christian Counseling & Educational Foundation (CCEF). He is a Lecturer in Practical Theology at Westminster Theological Seminary (Philadelphia). He has written numerous published articles and is the author of several CCEF booklets including Asperger Syndrome, Angry Children: Understanding and Helping Your Child Regain Control, Help for the Caregiver: Facing the Challenges with Understanding and Strength, and OCD: Freedom for the Obsessive Compulsive; as well as a book, Crosstalk: Where Life and Scripture Meet published by New Growth Press.

Participants: Camden Bucey, Jared Oliphint, Michael Emlet, Nick Batzig

In a chapter titled, “Theonomy and Eschatology” from the book Theonomy: A Reformed Critique, Richard B. Gaffin, Jr. explains how a proper understanding of eschatology can help us in times of suffering: 7 But we have this treasure in jars of clay, to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us. 8 We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; 9 persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; 10 always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our bodies. 11 For we who live are always being given over to death for Jesus’ sake, so that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh. 12 So death is at work in us, but life in you. (2 Corinthians 4:7-12, ESV)

“This treasure in jars of clay” graphically captures the tension at the heart of this statement, and of the apostle’s overall understanding of the nature of Christian existence between the resurrection and return of Christ… Paul intends to say, as long as believers are in “the mortal body,” “the life of Jesus” manifests itself as “the dying of Jesus”; the latter describes the existence mode of the former. Until the resurrection of the body at his return Christ’s resurrection-life finds expression in the church’s sufferings (and, as will become clear presently, nowhere else—so far as the existence and calling of the church are concerned); the locus of Christ’s ascension-power is the suffering church… A key to the intended impact of verse 10 is to recognize that both “and”s (following “Christ” and “resurrection”) are not simply coordinating but explanatory; they do not merely connect, they explicate. In step-wise fashion Paul progressively traces a single, composite notion: Knowing the power of his resurrection is not something in addition to knowing Christ, nor is knowing the fellowship of his sufferings a further addition to both. Rather, the controlling consideration is union with Christ in his death and resurrection such that to “know”/experience Christ is to experience the power of his resurrection and that, in turn, is to experience the fellowship of his sufferings—a total reality that can then be summed up as conformity to Christ’s death. By virtue of union with Christ, Paul is saying, the power of Christ’s resurrection is realized in the sufferings of the believer; sharing in Christ’s sufferings is the way the church manifests his resurrection-power. Again, as in II Corinthians 4:10-11, the locus of eschatological life is Christian suffering; the mark—the indelible, ineradicable impression—left on the existence of the church by the formative power of the resurrection is the cross. And, further, this is not some merely temporary state of affairs incidental to the circumstances of the church in the apostle’s own day but is for all—the whole church in whatever time and place—who aspire to the resurrection of the dead (v. 11)…

18 For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us. 19 For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God. 20 For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it, in hope 21 that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. 22 For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now. 23 And not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. (Romans 8:18-23, ESV)

Romans 8:18ff especially disclose the breadth of what ought to be our conception of Christian suffering. Suffering has to be seen in the context of the “frustration”/“futility” (mataiotes), the “bondage to decay” to which the entire creation has been subjected, not by the inherent nature of things but because of God’s curse on Adam’s sin (v. 20-21 are, in effect, a Pauline commentary on Gen. 3). Suffering is a function of the futility/decay principle pervasively at work in the creation since the fall; suffering is everything that pertains to creaturely experience of this death-principle… This revelation/liberation of believers (note: along with and inseparable from the liberation of creation as a whole) is the future dimension of their adoption and will take place at the time of the redemption (=resurrection) of the body (v. 23), not before. Until then, at Christ’s return, the suffering/futility/decay principle in creation remains in force, undiminished (but sure to be overcome); it is an enervating factor that cuts across the church’s existence, including its mission, in its entirety. The notion that this frustration factor will be demonstrably reduced, and the church’s suffering service noticeably alleviated and even compensated, in a future era before Christ’s return is not merely foreign to this passage; it trivializes as well as blurs both the present suffering and future hope/glory in view. Until his return, the church remains one step behind its exalted Lord; his exaltation means its (privileged) humiliation, his return (and not before), its exaltation…

Gaffin explains, as Paul did, that our very existence in this unredeemed world, even and especially as believers, carries with it expectations of suffering, regardless of personal circumstance. Our experience is patterned after Christ’s experience: suffering unto glory. How relevant is this to the prosperity gospel, or any other false gospel that promises worldly comforts as reward for following Christ?

The relationship of Christianity to various forms of counseling has been a turbulent subject in recent decades. With the advancement of medicinal science and the proliferation of different disease and therapy conceptual frameworks, a wide variety of challenging questions have been presented to Christians. Even within the Christian tradition, schools of thought vary widely in their understanding. Some see psychological issues as purely physiological. They strictly require a biological fix. Others view all psychological issues as direct results of personal sin that should be addressed with repentance. In my understanding, neither extreme does justice to biblical anthropology and the gospel. Certainly, many things in life are difficult, and Christians should in no way discredit the many blessings God has given for the help and healing of suffering people. We are body-soul unities, and Christians ought to be concerned with addressing the entire person in every situation. Even in psychological/psychiatric matters, we should be willing to see various medications and therapies in light of common grace. God often provides healing through the technological advancement of medicine. Mike Emlet’s course Counseling and Physiology at Westminster Theological Seminary via CCEF was incredibly helpful for me on these matters. We should not be under the impression that we can simply preach at people with manic depression or schizophrenia, for instance, expecting that will address these acute forms of suffering. In many instances God has given us medication and other therapies as good gifts of common grace. However, ultimately speaking, our good deeds in the body must be done in service of the ultimate “healing” which happens through salvation in Jesus Christ. In that sense, the gospel is the ultimate healing, since the gospel is a matter of special, salvific grace. It is the matter of first importance (1 Cor 15:3) and should be our ultimate (but not exclusive) concern. When we understand counseling in light of special and common grace, we can begin to address many of these difficult issues with biblical clarity and conviction. And in doing so, the preaching of the gospel begins to take on a central role in our understanding of counseling (cf. Rom 10:14-17) while embracing, and not eclipsing, the necessary care for whole persons.

CCEF has posted another excellent video with counselor Julie Lowe, who speaks about teaching children that are reluctant to change. Julie Lowe – Teaching children who are reluctant to change from CCEF on Vimeo.

Winston Smith, from the Christian Counseling and Educational Foundation, speaks about counseling abused spouses. Winston Smith – Am I equipped to counsel an abused spouse? from CCEF on Vimeo.